


A Time to Change

by austeneer731



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Politics, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5557472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/austeneer731/pseuds/austeneer731
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is a bright-eyed freshman, determined to learn more about her past. Ren is a sullen junior, unsure of his future. Finn is figuring things out, and Poe is trying to hide his pet ferret from the evil Res Life. </p><p>There is also an election afoot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

       “I didn’t think there was so much _green_ anywhere, _”_ Rey sighed happily.

       Takodana College, est. 1882, sat at the foot of the Adirondacks. The campus, with its neat circle of brick buildings, was nestled between a lake and a dense forest. Eager for a clearer view of the landscape, Rey had trekked to the highest point on campus—Lookout Hill, which the student guide had helpfully pointed out during the orientation tour. Standing on the sloping grass, her hand bracketing her forehead, Rey could see that the trees stretched all the way to the base of the mountain. Some were already tipped with autumn colors.

       She had grown up in the middle of the Nevada desert. Miles had separated her adoptive parents’ home and their neighbors. No water close by—if she wandered to the edge of Unkar Platt’s property, she could perhaps see a shrub or two in the distance. Surrounded by all this lush greenery, she felt as though she had been transported to another planet. Yet already she had a tentative sense of belonging.

       Her grin faded slightly as she looked over at the campus where she would spend the next four years. _Do I really belong here?_

       Takodana College opened for the fall semester tomorrow, and it would be Rey’s first ever day of school. The Platts had homeschooled her, doing the absolute minimum to meet the Nevada state requirements. Being a voracious reader, Rey had filled in some of the gaps in her education herself; she’d also gained practical experience from tinkering with the cars in Unkar’s auto repair shop. Last November she had sent out college applications in the spirit of let’s-see-what-happens. She knew that the Platts had neither the means nor the inclination to pay four years’ worth of tuition. Their expectation was that she stay home and take on more responsibility in the auto shop, perhaps attend some community college classes in the evenings. It wasn’t a bad life—Rey could imagine herself being quite happy, remaining where all was comfortable and familiar—but she wanted to see whether she was capable of _more._

       Then came the day when Unkar found her in the garage, splattered head to toe with motor oil as she greased the chain of her bike, and handed her a thick white envelope.

      “Takodana College!” Rey had ripped open the envelope, careless of her dirty hands. “I can’t believe it. They have the _best_ engineering program—” She stopped and looked up at her guardian. “Sorry. I know it’s too expensive.”

       “It’s all paid for,” Unkar grunted.

       “What? How?”

       “…You got a scholarship.”

       “But I didn’t even apply for one.” Rey flipped through the glossy welcome brochures, which all featured beaming co-eds in fleece jackets. “There’s nothing about a scholarship in here.”

       A flush spread across Unkar’s flabby face as he stared at her. He was a skilled mechanic, but his intelligence was otherwise limited. Rey could practically see the cogs in his brain working overtime.

       “It’s a secret scholarship?” he said, his voice rising in a question.

       “That doesn’t make—that doesn’t even _exist!”_

       “Just decide whether you want to go, all right?” he said irritably, lumbering out of the garage.

       “Does this have something to do with my parents?” Rey hollered after him. But she hadn’t received an answer.

       Of course she had decided to go. And now, thanks to her secret benefactor, she was thousands of miles from home, in the land of fir trees and Birkenstocks. The mystery of it all didn’t sit well with Rey. She now owed a huge debt to someone whose name she didn’t even know. This person, whoever he or she was, would be footing the bill for Rey’s education, her housing and meals, even the textbooks that she had picked up earlier from the campus bookstore.

       She was determined to find out the truth, but for now it would have to wait. Rey turned and started trudging down Lookout Hill. She had made plans to meet her new friend Finn for coffee—she had a _friend_ now, college was really a magical place—and she didn’t want to be late.


	2. Chapter 2

            Rey was meeting Finn at Maz’s Café, which was apparently _the_ place to grab coffee off-campus. She had not yet ventured into town and so was prepared to get horribly lost. Yet she needn’t have worried. Maz’s Café stood out among the plain brick storefronts that lined the town’s main drag. The coffeehouse was a blue and purple bungalow with a huge mural of daffodils painted on one side. A rainbow flag hung over the door, which had a plastic hand for a knob. The place gave off a decidedly funky vibe; Rey liked it at once.

            The bell on the door clanged as she stepped inside. A quick scan of the room revealed that Finn had not yet arrived. There weren’t many patrons in the café—just a few people dozing in chintzy armchairs, a pair of greybeards playing chess, and a dark-haired boy sitting alone near the back.

            Rey’s phone chimed in her bag. She took it out and read a text from Finn: _Running late, go ahead and order._

            “What’ll you be having today?” asked the barista, a small black woman with short-cropped hair and thick-framed glasses.

            Rey moved closer to the counter. “A macchiato, please.”

            “Good choice.” The woman bustled over to the espresso machine. “You’re a freshman at Takodana, aren’t you?”

            “Yes—how did you know?”

            “I’ve been running this place for almost nineteen years. After a while you see the same eyes in different people.” The barista—Maz herself, apparently—poured in the milk. “The upperclassmen come in with these vacant, bloodshot stares—they’ve either been working too hard or partying too late. The sophomores are a little better, but they still have a jaded look, like they think they know everything. But you,” she set down a small cup in front of Rey, “have big, bright eyes, ready to drink in the whole world.”

            Feeling self-conscious, Rey slipped her wallet out of her bag. Her gaze fell on the red button pin affixed to Maz’s sweater. _Proud Organa Donor._

“Yes,” Maz said cheerily, noticing her look. “I worked on Leia Organa’s first campaign six years ago, when she ran for Senate. And I’m going to be phone banking and going door to door for her this fall. She’ll make a fantastic president. We can’t allow that bastard Snoke into the White House. _Snake,_ I like to call him. Are you registered to vote?”

            Rey nodded. She had filled out the forms last spring, after turning eighteen. In truth, however, she knew little about national politics. Her upbringing had been apolitical; she suspected that neither of the Platts had cast a ballot in their lives. They never even watched the evening news, preferring to eat their Lean Cuisine meals in front of _The Price is Right_ reruns. Rey knew who Leia Organa was, of course—she would have to have been living under a rock not to recognize the name of the four-star general who had turned to politics, winning a controversial runoff election in Vermont. But she wasn’t too sure of who Snoke was, though, or what made him snake-like. She had a vague notion that he was the ex-governor of some Southern state—Alabama, maybe—and was known for being extremely tall.

            “You should consider volunteering,” Maz said as she rung up Rey’s drink. “This is going to be the biggest election of your life—mine, too, for that matter. The good guys need all the help they can get.”

            Rey promised that she would think about it and then carried her coffee to a table near the back, where she sat down and pulled her orientation folder from her bag. She and Finn were going to figure out which classes to visit during shopping period, the two week stretch of time when students could attend different courses without committing themselves. She began flipping through the course catalogue, pausing from time to time to blow on her drink.

            It was when she was studying the philosophy department’s offerings that Rey became aware of someone watching her. Glancing up, she met the gaze of the dark-haired boy whom she had noticed earlier. He had his chair scooted back and his legs stretched out in front of him as he regarded her steadily. An empty mug and a half-eaten muffin rested on the edge of his table.

            Annoyed, Rey frowned at him and then made a great show of returning to her catalogue, flipping to the next page and circling a few random words with her pen. She read the blurb for Advanced Deductive Logic until the sentences blurred into meaninglessness, then risked a glance sideways.

            The boy was still staring.

            He was her age or a few years older, with a pale, angular face and a dramatic sweep of black hair, long enough that it brushed his shoulders. Not handsome, Rey thought, but certainly arresting—she knew that she would remember his face later, and not just because he was gazing at her in an increasingly discomfiting way. He was dressed entirely in black, his sweater a little heavier than the weather called for. Rey noticed for the first time that he had a book in front of him, his place held by a pencil. She was tempted to lean over and peek at the title, but that might indicate some kind of reciprocal interest.

            The boy’s gaze drifted from Rey’s face to her orientation folder, which still lay open on the table. His brow creased. Rey would have wondered more about this reaction if Finn had not suddenly appeared, dropping into the chair opposite her.

            “Sorry I’m late,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I got locked out of my room, and since my roommate hasn’t shown up yet I had to run over to Res Life for an extra key.”

            The dark-haired boy now seemed raptly absorbed in his book. _Good,_ Rey thought, quelling an odd sense of disappointment. She focused her attention on Finn. “That’s okay,” she said. “It’s crazy that your roommate isn’t here yet. Classes start _tomorrow_.”

            “I know,” Finn said, frowning slightly. “The weird thing is I talked to Poe—that’s his name—last week. We were just texting back and forth about stupid stuff, like who’d bring the microwave.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “He didn’t say anything about arriving late. I guess something must have come up. Worse comes to worse, I’ll end up with a really big single this term. I can’t lock myself out of the room again, though. The fees skyrocket after the first time. So you’ve already started looking at classes.” He leaned forward, scanning the open page of the course catalogue. “Philosophy? I thought you wanted to go into engineering.”

            “I do, but I need a humanities course for the first semester. There was one class I saw…where was it…” Rey flipped back a few pages. “Yeah, this one. The Labor Forces, taught by Luke Skywalker.”  

            A loud snort. Rey’s head snapped around, but the dark-haired boy was still staring at his book.

            “Cool,” said Finn, who didn’t seem to have heard anything. “You know, I think I’ve heard of Skywalker. He’s this kind of old hippie radical—he’s written a bunch of books on Marxism.”

            “Have you read them?”

            “No. But,” the corner of Finn’s mouth turned downwards, “my parents started a Twitter campaign to get his books banned from the local library.”

            This wasn’t the first grim allusion Finn had made to his home life. He was adopted, like Rey, and seemed to have been raised by parents even less warm and fuzzy than the Platts. Rey sipped her coffee to give him time to collect himself. The dark-haired boy had started drumming his pencil against the edge of his table—it was very distracting.

            “I’ll shop Skywalker’s class with you,” Finn said, coming out of his reverie.

            “Great,” Rey said. “I think I’ve got the rest of my classes figured out. ‘Mars, Moon, and the Earth’ in the Geo department, an applied math course, and then ENGN 101. I thought that a grad student would be in charge of the intro engineering course, but apparently it’s being taught by this really awesome professor, Han Solo. I’ve asked around and it seems like he’s a legend here—”

            There was a shrill scraping noise as the dark-haired boy pushed his chair back. He stood, shoved his book into his bag, and stormed out of the coffee shop, letting the door slam behind him. Rey caught Maz’s startled expression from behind the counter.

            This time Finn noticed the disturbance. “God, what’s _his_ problem?”

            An excellent question. “No idea,” Rey said as airily as she could, and the subject was dropped.   


	3. Chapter 3

A crisp knock sounded on Ren’s door. He hit 'Delete' on the latest email from his mother and pushed his chair away from his desk. "It's unlocked," he said. 

Hux marched in. He never simply walked into a room; he entered a space like he was mounting an invasion. Ren watched Hux yank open the door of the minifridge and stick his sleek red head inside. "Your taste in alcohol is abysmal," he said, his voice muffled. "Keystone Light? What are you, a high school junior?"

"It was on sale." Ren paused. “It’s also mine. Don’t take my shit without asking.”

Hux, who was in the midst of opening a can, shot him a disdainful look. “Please. You mooched off me all the time when we were roommates. The number of times I swiped you in at the dining hall...and I never saw a cent after I got that dehumidifier for our room." 

"I never wanted that fucking thing. You were the one always coughing and complaining about the dust."

"And it's not like you couldn't afford to pay me back," Hux pressed on, "considering that your parents--"

“Don’t talk about my family.”

“Don’t have one of your hissy fits,” Hux retorted, and Ren forced his fists to unclench. “All I’m saying is that you at least owe me one shitty beer.”

Ren turned back to his computer and typed a string of gibberish into the browser bar, just for the sake of keeping his hands occupied. “We're not roommates anymore, Hux," he said flatly, "so there's no real reason for us to see each other." 

"So you're still pissed that I signed up to be an R.A. this year." Hux pushed aside a pile of unfolded laundry and sat down on Ren's bed. "Phasma said as much."

"Phasma doesn't know shit." 

"She said you're devolving into a caricature of yourself." Hux took the copy of _Beyond Good and Evil_ from Ren's bedside table and thumbed through it. "The dark, tortured shut-in. Ben Solo to the _nth_ degree."

Ren reached out and grabbed the book. " _Don't_ say--"

"Please." Hux lifted his brows, looking amused. "I get why you use the alias around campus, so that people don't make the connection to Han, but this is me. I already know all your secrets." 

"I don't need you and Phasma _worrying_ about me like a couple of--"

"Friends?" Hux supplied dryly. 

"Exactly." He didn't want friends. He had never needed it, the easy camaraderie shared by the brown-haired girl and her companion at Maz's café. So cozy, so sickeningly sweet, the pair of them poring over that course catalog and planning their futures. 

Hux was talking. Ren pulled his thoughts away from the girl--she was _the girl_ in his mind, since despite all his best efforts he hadn't caught her name--and tried to focus. "....here on Phasma's behalf, actually, to invite you. _Invite_ is too mild a word, actually. She said to drag you out of the dorm if necessary." 

"Where are you dragging me?" 

"Our group's first official event." Hux drew a flyer from his jacket pocket and handed it over with a flourish. "'Students for Snoke' phone-banking extravaganza." 

Ren stiffened. He rolled his chair back from Hux's outstretched hand, as though the flyer might burst into flames and sear him. "I'm not ready to commit yet." 

"I thought we were done with the tiresome Hamlet routine." Hux shook the slip of paper at him. "The _will-I-won't-I_ crap. You said that if _she_ ran you'd come out for Snoke. Publicly. Well, the election's in November and time is running out. Pick a side, man. You'll give a big boost to our group if you come tonight. If Ben Solo--sorry, _Kylo Ren_ \--shows up at our inaugural meeting of the semester, the campus will be buzzing for weeks."

"How are you able to go out at all tonight?" Ren demanded, determined to deflect. "You're an RA, and tomorrow's the first day of school. Don't you have to stay in your dorm and soothe all the hyperventilating freshmen?"

"I'll work the phones for an hour, then head back." Hux scowled. "Three days of orientation, and I'm already sick of this job. When I applied I thought I'd just live in a freshman dorm and get paid, but it turns out I'm a fucking babysitter.  I've already had one girl come to me crying because she was homesick. _Homesick_ , after one night. If you're eighteen years-old and you can't make it through forty-eight hours without whining for your mommy, then natural selection hasn't done its proper job. I might just quit--you could have me as a roommate again after all." 

"Among the freshmen in your dorm, have you seen..." Ren stopped. He was on the brink of embarrassing himself. How could he ask the question? _Have you seen a girl with a heart-shaped face and bright eyes?_

Hux looked at him curiously. "Have I seen what?"

Ren's phone rang. He checked the caller ID, then crossed the room in long strides and opened his door. "You've got to go," he told Hux, clutching his phone to his chest.

"Rude." Hux planted his beer can on top of Nietzsche and strolled out. "Come phone-banking," he directed over his shoulder.

"I'll think about it." After the door closed, Ren answered his phone on the last ring. "Hello?"

"My dear boy," Snoke purred. "How are you?"


	4. Chapter 4

Finn was slipping his last textbook into his backpack, patting his pockets to make sure he had his phone, when he heard the jangling of keys. He glanced up to see the door of his dorm room swing open. A boy with shaggy dark hair wheeled a bulging, battered suitcase over the threshold. On his back he had a orange rucksack, and poking its sleek head through the drawstring opening was a tawny-furred ferret.

The boy steered his luggage over to the unclaimed bed. He released the handle of his suitcase, letting it teeter and topple over, and stretched his hand out to Finn. “Hey, I’m Poe. It’s Finn, right? Good to finally meet you.”

“Hey.” Finn shook Poe’s hand while keeping an eye on the ferret, which stared back at him beadily. “I, um, have a couple questions.”

“About why I missed orientation,” Poe said ruefully. The ferret wriggled further out of the rucksack and curled around his neck like a scarf. “One of the servers at my mom’s restaurant quit without notice. I stayed home and covered shifts until she could find someone new. Mom kept telling me to go—she was worried I’d get in trouble if I wasn’t here the first day. ‘That’s not how college works, Mom,’ I told her. Bibi and I woke up at four this morning and drove straight here. My first class is at noon, so I’ve got time to unpack and settle in.” He paused and gave Finn a once-over. “Looks like you’re headed out now.”

If Finn didn’t leave soon, he’d miss the start of the philosophy course he had agreed to shop with Rey. But punctuality was the least of his concerns at the moment. “ _That’s_ Bibi?” he asked. In response to its name, the ferret let out a weird kind of yodel, showing off sharp white teeth.

“Yep.” Poe reached behind his head and maneuvered the ferret into his arms, cradling him like a newborn. “I mentioned him in my texts.”

“Yeah, you did…but I thought he was a dog.”

Poe laughed, as though owning a dog was an outlandish concept. “What made you think that?”

“Well, you were always saying things like, ‘Just got back from taking Bibi on a walk.’” Poe looked at him as if to say _And so?_ A montage unfolded in Finn’s head: Poe strolling down a suburban street with his ferret, pausing to let Bibi sniff the flowerbeds, getting tangled up with another ferret-owner’s leash _101 Dalmatians_ style. He shook his head to clear it. “I guess I’m just wondering why he’s here. I mean,” he chuckled nervously, “you’re not thinking that he’ll _live_ with us, are you?”

As though realizing that he was the subject of discussion, Bibi started wriggling in Poe’s arms. Once Poe set him on the floor, he scuttled over to Finn's side of the room. He jumped onto Finn's chair, and from there onto his dresser; he then aimed for the closet shelf but fell short, bringing down a number of Finn's shirts from their hangers.

"Is he--" Finn stepped forward in alarm, but Bibi seemed unperturbed by his fall. He blinked at FInn innocently from beneath a pile of plaid.

“The thing is, buddy—” Finn turned to see Poe rubbing the back of his neck—“it was kind of your idea that he live with us.”

The guy was delusional. Not once in their exchanges about sleep schedules and room decor and snack stocking options had Finn suggested that they illicitly house a ferret in a 14 by 10 foot space. “Pretty sure it wasn’t,” Finn said.

Poe took out his phone, typed the passcode, and handed it to Finn. “Check our texts from last week. I think it was Thursday night—we were texting pretty late.”

Finn scrolled through the texts. There were a lot of them—he and Poe had racked up a lengthy message history in a short period of time. He hadn’t even been aware that they were talking so much. For some reason he could feel himself blushing.

“I said something like, ‘Bibi’s fallen asleep in my lap.’ And then you told me about how you had a labrador puppy in fifth grade, named Scout, but your parents made you give her away because they thought she was interfering with your studies. At the time,” Poe said, “I just thought ‘wow, his parents are jerks.’ I didn’t see what it had to do with Bibi. Now it makes more sense, given that you thought he was a dog.”

“And then I said—” Something slammed into Finn’s chest as he finally found the right set of texts. “‘Hey, what if you brought Bibi to school with you next week? It’d be awesome! Haha, jk.’” He looked up at Poe. “It was 2 am,” he said weakly. “I must have been half-asleep already. I don’t even remember sending that. And I did add ‘jk’ at the end.”

“Yeah, but I thought it meant you were at least open to the idea. And you seemed like such a cool guy in general—look.” Poe suddenly moved closer to Finn, his face full of appeal. “I couldn’t leave him behind. Mom’s got this boyfriend, Ted—total deadbeat, but she loves him. With me gone he’ll probably move into the apartment, and I don’t like the way he looks at Bibi. He’s got these loser friends, too, and Mom’s away at work all day—I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to Bibi. I know he’ll be safe here. You won’t have to do anything. I’ll take care of him, keep him a secret. And I’ll put that to rights.” He gestured at the pile of clothes in front of Finn's closet.

Finn opened his mouth and shut it. He thought of Rey, and her wide-eyed wonder as she embraced everything Takodona had to offer. At her side Finn felt constrained, like he was teetering on the brink of something amazing but was too afraid to dive in. Probably it had something to do with being raised by people who thought a dog was a frivolous indulgence for a twelve year-old. But what would it be like if, just once, he said _yes_ to something crazy? What if he stepped off the known path and chose the adventure?

Bibi scampered over to them and pawed at Poe’s leg. Poe scooped him up in his arms. “He can live with us,” Finn said. “I’d even be curious to see how you walk him.”

“Awesome.” Poe’s face relaxed into a grin. Finn felt a jolt, a shock at the base of his spine, as he realized that his new roommate was extremely good-looking. The shock of Bibi had stopped him from noticing the slight curl in Poe’s dark hair, the fullness of his lips, the breadth of his shoulders in his jacket.

“We’ll have to be careful, though, about Bibi,” he said quickly, before his stupid brain could notice anything else. “Hux, our RA, is a total hardass. He’ll lose his shit if he finds out we have a pet.”

“We can handle him,” Poe said confidently. He landed a light punch on Finn’s arm, and Finn tried not to lean into the touch. "Hey, shouldn't you get going for class?"

Finn glanced at the clock on his dresser. "Shit. Yeah, I should." He shuffled his feet, strangely reluctant to leave. "You said your first class is at noon--what will you do til then?"

Poe shrugged. "Not sure. Probably unpack, shower, get something to eat." He set Bibi down on his bed and stretched his arms over his head.

"Right." Finn wasn't going to watch the play of muscles beneath Poe's shirt. Nor was he going to dwell on the word _shower,_ because that way lay madness. He clutched the strap of his backpack and headed for the door, bent on a speedy exit. Yet, with his hand on the doorknob, he found himself saying, "I don't know if you like coffee, but if you do, my friend Rey and I will probably stop by this cool place in town later. It's called Maz's Cafe. You could join us."

"Sounds great. Text me the address." Poe beamed at him, and Finn pushed through the door, dizzy already from the adventure of living with Poe Dameron.


End file.
